Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today defended President George W. Bush against reports he authorized spying on American citizens and foreign nationals in the U.S. following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The New York Times reported that Bush in 2002 secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without the court-approved warrants that are required for domestic spying. The international phone calls and e-mail messages of hundreds, possibly thousands, of people have been monitored without warrants to find numbers linked to al-Qaeda, the paper said. Rice, interviewed on NBC's ``Today'' show, said ``the president has been very clear that he would not order people to do things that are illegal.'' She declined to comment directly on the New York Times report. The presidential order Bush signed represents a change in responsibilities for the NSA, which traditionally monitors actions in foreign countries, the Times said. ... http://quote.bloomberg.com

Dozens of al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters who attacked Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison in April planned to knock a hole in the prison wall and topple guard towers with a series of car bombs to free detainees and hit U.S. forces, according to a purported al-Qaeda video. The April 2 attack on the prison, west of Baghdad, left one attacker dead and more than 40 U.S. soldiers and 13 prisoners wounded. Dozens of militants failed to break in after attacking the facility with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and car bombs. The 8-minute video, signed by the spokesman of al-Qaeda in Iraq and posted on an Islamic militant Web forum Tuesday, shows a satellite photo of the facility, with U.S. troop positions and "interrogation booths" marked in English, as a voice-over outlines the plans of the attack. A ticker along the bottom of the well-produced video streamed photos of abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers at the facility, including a famed image of a naked prisoner being dragged on a leash by ...http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-12-16-militant-tape_x.htm?csp=34

More than 700,000 homes and businesses began the day Friday without power after a frigid night allowed ice to build from a deadly storm in the South. The ice also left commuters with more tough driving conditions from Georgia to Maryland, and forecasters warned that dense morning fog could create an extra coat of ice in below-freezing weather. Hundreds of accidents were reported Thursday, and utility companies said it would take days to fully restore power. Still in the dark Friday were about 328,000 customers in North Carolina, 358,000 customers in South Carolina and 30,000 in Georgia — numbers that climbed from the night before as temperatures fell and ice built up. The outages were caused when ice-laden tree limbs fell onto power lines. ...http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2005-12-14-ice-storms_x.htm?csp=34

The leftist front-runner for Sunday's election in Bolivia, Evo Morales, has ended his campaign saying his movement is "a nightmare for the United States". Mr Morales has vowed to end free-market policies and legalise the growing of coca, which has traditional uses but is also used in the production of cocaine. His main rival, the conservative Jorge Quiroga, ended his campaign promising to create jobs and prosperity. Bolivia has had five presidents in four years and is a deeply divided nation. It is currently governed by interim President Eduardo Rodriguez, who took office after Carlos Mesa was ousted amid popular protests. Eight candidates are running in Sunday's election. Polls suggest that Mr Morales - an Aymara Indian who is hoping to become the country's first indigenous head of state - has a slight lead over Mr Quiroga, a former president. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4534332.stm

Even by Iraq's standards of violence the town of Tal Afar has a hideous reputation. Not just among its dwindling, weary population but among the American troops who arrived here to snuff out a sustained and ferocious insurgency. For two years this scrubland town of 150,000 and falling, near the Syrian border, has experienced its own terrifying war. Hundreds have died in battles; others have been beheaded, executed, shot. Its police have fled, some of its people have turned up in mass graves."Tal Afar is a little bit Mad Max," was how one spokesman for the US-led coalition characterised it to the Guardian. Yesterday, the day of Iraq's first full-term parliamentary elections, there was, however, an unusual sight on Tal Afar's streets: queues of Sunni Muslims waiting to vote. At the Zahawi school - known to the US third armoured cavalry regiment as bravo one four - they stood for up to four hours to make their mark, broken up into groups of about a dozen, leaving gaps, to ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1668770,00.html

The Senate scrapped a Democratic-led effort to renew the USA Patriot Act for just three months -- an extension that Republicans considers too short -- increasing prospects that provisions the administration believes indispensable to the war on terrorism may soon expire."The House of Representatives opposes such an extension and the president will not sign such an extension," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told his colleagues in a floor showdown Friday as lawmakers scurried to finish business for the year.From the White House, Bush's spokesman agreed that the president would not sign a short term extension as they sought to give a boost to efforts to renew provisions of the law that are set to expire December 31....http://www.cnn.com/rssclick/2005/POLITICS/12/16/senate.patriot.ap/index.html?section=cnn_us